


Three Threads

by GrayceAdamsArchive



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hallucinations, Hearing Voices, Not quite canon compliant but compliant enough I suppose, Spoilers for The Empty Hearse, spoilers for The Sign of Three
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:57:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayceAdamsArchive/pseuds/GrayceAdamsArchive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock falls, he is left with three gunmen to hunt down and remove before he can return from the dead and be reunited with the three people he jumped for. </p><p>But there's a problem the detective hadn't anticipated: he keeps hearing John Watson's voice in his head. When he can't afford to be distracted, sentiment is pulling him in one direction and logic in another, leaving him with three threads to cut and a Voice calling him home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Threads

**Author's Note:**

> Something I came up with just before or just after watching TEH, I don't remember which, probably just after. Written rather quick and dirty, so I'm sorry for any mistakes, drop me a comment if you find any and I'll fix them. :)

_Hello?_

John.

_Hey, Sherlock, you okay?_

Turn around and walk back the way you came, now.

_No, I’m coming in._

Just do as I ask. Please.

_Where?_

Stop there.

_Sherlock?_

Okay, look up. I’m on the rooftop.

_Oh, God._

I...I can’t come down, so we’ll….we’ll just have to do it like this.

_What’s going on?_

An apology. It’s all true.

_Wh-what?_

Everything they said about me. I invented Moriarty.

_Why are you saying this?_

I’m a fake.

_Sherlock…._

The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade; I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson, and Molly...in fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Moriarty for my own purposes.

_Okay, shut up, Sherlock, shut up. The first time we met...the first time we met, you knew all about my sister, right?_

Nobody could be that clever.

_You could._

I….I researched you. Before we met I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It’s a trick. Just a magic trick.

_No. Alright, stop it now._

No, stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.

_Alright. Alright._

Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?

_Do what?_

This phone call-it’s, er….it’s my note. It’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note?

_Leave a note when?_

Goodbye, John.

_No. Don’t-_

**_SHERLOCK!_ **

 

~oOo~

 

He still hears it. That excruciating cry right as he’d jumped, calling out for him, the word ripping from John’s lips like he was screaming from the bottom of his very soul.

He doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to wake the night after his fall, wrenched from sleep by a haunting cry that was one word that screamed three: _Don’t leave me!_ But nevertheless that agonized howl seems to echo in his head no matter how hard he tries to delete it.

_Sherlock!_

Delete, delete, delete.

_Sherlock!_

Damn.

It’s distracting, it’s dangerous, clinging to this sound reaching after him from the past. It could get him killed. But it doesn’t go away, so he decides to just ignore it, to let it be.

He follows the threads of Moriarty’s web. He picks the first thread, the man who’d been sent to kill Mrs. Hudson. Early forties, bald, tattoos, military training in the U.K., dishonorably discharged, anger management issues, no family, no friends. He hacks into the CCTV and follows the man after he leaves 221b. He can’t remove this thread while its still in London. So he pursues him to Peru. The assassin is part of a drug ring in South America, and the drug ring topples when he applies pressure in the right places. The thread is cut afterwards.

Mrs. Hudson is safe, three months after his fall.

The second thread is harder. The trail is cold after so many weeks, and though he follows it to Uganda, it is then lost. Several months of dead ends leave him frustrated.

_Sherlock Holmes, baffled._

Shut up, John, he snaps at empty air and pauses. He’s heard John’s cry in his head for weeks now. It is normal to hear that heartbreaking cry of _'Sherlock'_ echo through his mind palace in his every moment of peace. Well. Sort of peace.

But this, this was new. It was still an echo, a memory of a normal day in the flat when John had been typing in his blog, telling the world about his brilliance, and his humanity.

No, don’t mention the unsolved ones!

_Why not? People want to know you’re human._

No, they don’t. Why do they want to know?

_Sherlock Holmes, baffled. Who wouldn’t want to know?_

Shut up, John.

There is a lead in India, and he spends weeks in a crowded, dirty, overpopulated city, searching, searching, searching for one man in a sea of faces and information. Weeks turn into months. He almost gives up, almost moves on. Almost.

Then, finally, the break he is waiting for, a prostitution ring is discovered and he cuts the thread, so the ring collapses like a  marionette. Lestrade is safe, and he knows that the last thread realizes someone is coming for him. He doesn’t start at the beginning, doesn’t start in London. The temptation is too great, and John is still in danger. He puts his ear to the ground and listens, and waits.

The one year mark passes and he catches a glimpse of himself in a storefront window in Berlin. His hair is long (it always did grow fast) hanging around his face and jaw in wild curls, stubble dotting his cheeks, making him look much like a tree with half its leaves blow off (he’d never been able to grow a full beard). His clothes, dark and practical, were showing signs of wear around the edges, the color fading, the dirt on them more visible. He looks nothing like Sherlock Holmes.

_You could at least eat something, you beanpole._

The words are a mix-up of memories, almost unique enough to be considered a Voice, but no, it’s just memory stirring and overlapping, and he scowls and moves on again, trying to find the last thread in a world full of yarn.

He starts hearing it daily and he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want this reminder in his head of all that he has to lose. It’s often said that those with nothing to lose stand the most to gain. And he holds so much of each side in his hands it’s spilling over and he’s afraid that he’ll drop it all.

Sentiment is weakening him, and he catches himself calculating the possibility that he’ll manage to escape cutting this elusive last thread and live. The numbers are low, but he keeps chasing after the last thread with the determination of a madman.

All lives end. All hearts are broken. Perhaps it had been his time, on that rooftop. He’d certainly cheated death many times before, and that was no exception. Caring is not an advantage. Why is he doing this again?

_Because you’re an idiot._

Be quiet, he hisses, grabbing at his wild hair and glaring at the ground. You’ll get me killed.

_I’m the only reason you’re alive._

A flutter of panic stirs in his gut. That was not a memory. The memory of John in his head has changed to the Voice of John. He tries to delete it. It’s agonizing, the thought of removing the sound of John’s voice from his head, but he cannot risk having the Voice of John distract him.

Delete, delete, delete.

_Find the thread, Sherlock. You’re wasting time trying to get rid of me._

Damn.

The eighteen month mark passes, and he’s still searching. He’s positive the thread is in Serbia somewhere, but he just can’t find it. Frustration drives him on, pausing to eat even less that he stops to sleep.

_You’ll kill yourself at this rate._

Be quiet, he growls, but the Voice doesn’t listen, it never does, and it’s only louder when he goes to his mind palace, like he is now.

_You need to eat. And sleep. And possibly shave, you look terrible._

How I look doesn’t matter, Sherlock grumbles, running through his list of evidence that the last thread is here in this country. It is not a long list. He doesn’t have a choice, he has to risk it. He has to cut the thread, he has to keep John safe.

_I’d be safer if you would be more cautious. If they find out you’re alive, I’m a dead man walking, too._

I know, Sherlock snaps, leaving his mind palace and gathering what he needs from the pathetic little hovel he’s been living in for the last few days.

He ends up outside a military compound, and sneaks inside by hiding in the back of a trunk between crates of supplies. Inside, he waits until nightfall to emerge, and steals through the complex, trying to find the last thread.

When he finally does, the man is awake, not asleep as he’d hoped he would be. They struggle, but the thread is cut with a sharp blow to the back of the man’s neck.

You’re safe, John, he gasps for air over the broken body. John, you’re safe. You’re safe.

_That’s all well and good, but you might want to think about getting yourself out of there before you get shot, you twat._

He looks up to realize that the commotion he and the thread had made in their struggle has roused others, and someone is trying to open the door. He hides to one side, and when the door opens, he knocks out the new adversary, and then bolts. He manages to make it out of the compound, though the alarm is raised just as he manages to get outside. He is running, running through the woods and brush and darkness, barely any idea as to which direction he is heading except away.

 _Faster!_ John cries in his head. _Sherlock, faster! They’ll catch you! They’ll kill you!_

Feeling as though his lungs are about to explode inside his chest cavity, he tries, he tries to run faster, his pulse loud in his ears, but not loud enough to hide the sound of a helicopter. There is shouting in the woods all around him, and despair swells in his heart.

_Don’t you dare! You have to come back to me, Sherlock! You have to come back!_

And he tries, he really tries, but it’s no use, they have caught him, and it is over.

~oOo~

He loses track of the days. Four? Five? A week? It could be any. He hasn’t slept, hasn’t even sat down, held up by the long chains attached to his wrists that spread his arms wide and keep him upright. They took his shirt and his shoes and his socks, and his feet feel dead and numb from cold on the concrete floor that’s spattered with his blood. His hands are numb, too, but more from lack of circulation than anything else. His head hangs down between his shoulders, and what he can see of his own chest through swollen, tired eyes is black and blue all over.

_Stay awake, Sherlock, he’s coming back._

He raises his head a bit, trying to see the man coming in the door. There are two men, one in a vest and long pants, another in a heavy coat and hat. There is little warning. The first man simply takes up a pipe leaning against the wall and swings it into his gut. He gasps and chokes, the wind knocked from his lungs.

 _Breathe, Sherlock!_ John cries, and he manages to sip in a breath or two before the next blow hits. It goes on for a while, and then the questions begin.

Upali ste ovde sa razlogom . Samo nam recite zašto i vi možete spavati . Zapamti san? (You broke in here for a reason. Just tell us why and you can sleep. Remember sleep?) The pipe is readied for another blow, and he recoils mentally from the thought of another strike. Words slip unbidden from his lips, a thready whisper, his only defense against the coming impact. The man pauses, staring at him.

Šta ? (What?) he demands, lowering the pipe. The man grabs his hair and his neck complains as his head is pulled up at a sharp angle. More words, his eyes roaming almost unwillingly over the other man’s form, taking in minute details. The man in coat suddenly speaks up, and he feels something low in his gut leap with something he might dare deem hope.

Pa? Šta je rekao? (Well? What did he say?) the man in coat asks as the man in the vest shoves his head down and away.

On je rekao da sam radio u mornarici , gde sam imao nesrećan ljubavnu aferu. (He said that I used to work in the navy, where I had an unhappy love affair.) The man barks another word, something he doesn’t catch, so he continues allowing the deductions to fall from his lips, his voice barely above a whisper.

Tostruja se ne radi u mom kupatilu , a da moja žena spava sa našim komšija! (That the electricity isn’t working in my bathroom; and that my wife is sleeping with our next door neighbour!) The man in the vest grabs his hair again and yanks his head up and back, and pain blinds him to the question he demands, so he just continues deducing, it has worked so far.

Sanduk za kafu! (The coffin maker!) More words, more deductions, if only it would get him to leave.

I ako ja odem kući sada, ja ću ih uhvatiti na nju! Znao sam! Znao sam da se nešto dešava ! (If I go home now, I’ll catch them at it! I knew it! I knew there was something going on!) The man in the vest storms out, leaving just him and the man in the coat, who stands, brushing invisible dust from his front.

Dakle, moj prijatelj. Sada smo samo ti i ja. (So, my friend. Now it’s just you and me.) He walks up to him and pulls gently on his hair, tilting his face up to speak into his ear. Nemate pojma nevolja je trebalo da vas pronađu. (You have no idea the trouble it took to find you.) The man’s voice changes, drops lower, and switches languages.

Now listen to me. There’s an underground terrorist network active in London and a massive attack is imminent. Sorry, but the holiday is over, brother dear, Mycroft murmurs. Back to Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes. Mycroft releases his hair and steps back.

He smiles. Back to Baker Street. Back home.

_Come home to me, Sherlock._

Back to John.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking either leaving it just like as it is, or maybe extending it and giving you a much more in-depth view of what exactly Sherlock did during his little 'vacation.' Also, I played with a new writing style because this is all very much from Sherlock's POV, was the way I wrote it confusing? I'd really love some feedback on this one. :) Thanks for reading, even if you don't have anything to say!
> 
> Also, I used Google Translate for the Serbian, and I'm very very sorry if I got anything wrong.


End file.
